Hi folks. I’ve created a custom workout that I like and I like Macia’s as a nice way to get some VO2 on the trainer. I take Macias and add 5% or so to it and that really ramps up the difficulty. Makes for a good base for a workout or if you need a shorter but tough workout you can use it. I’ll post a couple of example workouts below.
In the winter I’ll ride 8 or so hours a week, on a recovery week like this week it might be 6 hours, most weeks it’ll be around 8, maybe 10 if time allows and I can ride outdoors one day.
Saturday is consistently my longer ride, this past Saturday I did a harder ride mostly because it was a 3hr trainer ride which gets boring AF. But I also know a 3hr Z2 ride, with maybe occasional bursts to low end tempo for a few mins has mitochondrial and cardiovascular benefits that I might not get at higher outputs.
I’m wondering if Mon/Weds should be VO2 and high tempo/ss workouts and remaining workouts should be Z2/low3 focus. I don’t have time to rid 12-15hrs a week so I know I can’t just rely on Z2, I tried that last year on a TR program and went backwards a lot doing one of their base plans.
Below you can see Macias and my custom 2x12 workout that I made as a good base for getting work done in a fairly short amount of time or front loading a workout with some hard efforts settling in to Z2/Z3 work.
I don’t want to overdo things but after going backwards last year so much I do not want that to happen again, I’ve been unable to catch up but had been making real progress towards the end of the season. Any thoughts on structuring this stuff would be appreciated.
I’ve become a bit of a broken record lately in that I don’t really find mixed blocks like this as useful as just focusing on vo2 for a block. And the vo2 workouts are simple: 6x3min, 7x3, 5x4, 4x5, 6x4 and 5x5, just going as hard as you can in each (so no erg) make recovery between each as long as you need. I do two workouts a week and the rest endurance mainly (14hrs per week total)
Yeah no ERG is controversial. The TR folks say use ERG, a couple folks I know with trainers seem to be split about half say use ERG the other half says it’s ok for power to trail off just keep HR elevated at > 90% of max HR preferably at 95%. Pretty damn confusing.
It doesn’t have to be confusing, the thing with erg that I found frustrating with intervals is that as fatigue builds you can get caught up in the trainer death spiral. But also limiting erg to a percent of ftp could be underselling yourself. Not constraining yourself to a percentage can allow you to make some good improvements in your power curve. So a couple of things to consider regarding erg
Counterpoint. I did mixed blocks for the last 3 years and passed 60 laps around the sun and got faster than doing focused blocks. Not everyone responds like you, or me.
Why not just follow one of TR’s base plans that has two intensity days and fill in the rest with endurance and your outdoor ride? Seems like that would fulfill what you are doing manually.
cool, but there’s a reason why coaches I know have their athletes do only vo2 blocks, that’s where plateaus are busted. I was already at a plateau and a lot more emphasis on vo2 blocks helped me get over that hump this past year by 10-15w, a couple of guys I know coached by Rory Porteous with Empirical Cycling have added 20w each over one block of doing 3 vo2 sessions a week. So yeah, I think focused blocks are more helpful than mixed blocks
My coach has National and World Tour riders on his roster, to your name dropping point. I’m done. You are missing the empirical point of the reference you made.
Counter counter point. Self coaches should try both and see what works, adjust, move forward incrementally. Everything can work at some point in time but it’s up to the [self]coaches to identify when something stops working and to move on and try something else
I’m scrolling this thread in reverse. What is it you’re trying to accomplish with the workouts? The variedness of it doesn’t look like there wasn’t much of a purpose… Then again sometimes that is the point.
But do you have a progressive plan in place? Some goal you have in mind. The machine(you) will get better at what you give it, then plateau until you give it something new.
Back to purpose…think about what it is you want to accomplish… If months from now, then break it down further until you get something small enough you can chew on. Maybe a month…ok with this next month, what do you want to see happen? These aren’t ftp outcome goals, these are process goals or incremental goals ( I want to see improvement in a specific metric like 1min repeatability, more time at x watts, not I want to add 20w to my ftp). You can’t decide how much you’ll improve only if you’re moving in the right direction.
Once you have that goal in place you’ll get better insight on the workout planning and deciding how to structure those weeks.
I am a big believer in lots of zone 2 and below this time of year at least and the way I keep it interesting on the trainer is I’ve created workouts (in trainerday because I gave up on trainer road’s workout creator) that have 1-3 minute varying endurance “intervals” for a random amount of time (5-10 minutes) and then throw in a 10-15 second sprint and repeat. I do anywhere from 1.5-3 hours of this. I also have one that has easy 3 4x30 “vo2 max” interval sets dispersed throughout an endurance ride. I consider both of these to be endurance efforts, not vo2 max etc. I also do just regular endurance rides. My base has already improved a lot after 3 weeks of 10 hours of pedaling time each week in mostly zone 2.
I know there’s some controversy about mixing intensities but I feel that because these are short intervals it’s fine and it’s better than being bored and when I do endurance rides outside I absolutely do some higher intensity because I live in a very hilly area. If I was doing longer intervals with extra z2 thrown in before/after them I would consider it a threshold/vo2max workout etc.
Do they though? (And if they do, this it case where they are wrong imo) Some VO2 and sprint workouts say you might want to turn erg mode off.
I’m not saying you can’t us erg mode, but if you do, you need to be hitting the plus and minus workout intensity buttons to make the most of the session, hard to do when you are on the limit.
My goal till Mid/Late Feb is to just not go backwards a bunch like I did last year. Variability is key for indoor training with me, I simply get bored doing the same workout over and over. The 2min intervals vs the 4 break up the routine a bit. If I’m doing VO2 outside I’ll do 4x5min because while it’s super hard and that last interval makes me want to fall over in a ditch, it’s still somehow fun when I’m outside. When I’m inside? All I can think about is the pain in my legs, gasping for air and watching the countdown clock. I find 4mins much more tolerable inside.
I’ll do one maybe two VO2 workouts a week, probably one for the next 10-12 weeks, then in mid/late Feb I’ll do two or three a week to begin preparing for the outdoor riding season and various events. I’m not very fast so I’m not doing anything super competitive but I compete with myself and a small group of friends.
Outdoors I do 3.5 to 4 min intervals for VO2. The time being how well I’m doing on my nearest hill on that day. Indoors I’ll do 30 / 30 , 30 / 15, or 40 / 20 etc. Can’t stand long interval VO2 indoors.
OP I do VO2 at least once a week year round, but keep it simple as above. I’m late 50s and keeping some intensity even in base is recommended. Certainly works for me.
I haven’t looked at the TR base plans recently but when I looked at the polarized base last year I remember thinking that there was not enough frequency. It had like two-three rest days during the week even though on the prior day it only prescribed 1 hr endurance or something. I think lots of people can get lots of progression by doing 6-7 days of endurance riding a week and making at least one of those a longer effort and all but one a recovery effort. So I’m not surprised you went backwards following that plan last year. And if you’re riding outside you need to look at your time spent coasting if you live in a hilly area. I personally at least think it’s worth scrapping most threshold/vo2 work for several weeks and doing lots of endurance until you’re so fit and bored that you’re begging for harder stuff. Oh I also do strength training and mobility/flexibility type stuff. It’s like resetting my body mentally and physically.
